- Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer was the first EU leader to meet with Putin since the invasion.
- Nehammer told NBC’s Meet the Press the conversation was “frank and tough.”
- He also said Putin is “in his own war logic” and thinks Russia will win the war.
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Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer said Russian President Vladimir Putin was fairly confident about his military action in Ukraine, even after Russian forces withdrew from part of the country after weeks of stagnation.
Nehammer on Monday became the first European Union leader to meet with Putin since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24. In an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press on Saturday, Nehammer said the conversation with Putin was not “friendly” but “frank and tough.” .”
“I think he’s in his own war logic now. He thinks that the war is necessary to guarantee the security of the Russian Federation. He doesn’t trust the international community. He blames the Ukrainians for the genocide in the Donbass region.”
When asked by moderator Chuck Todd if Putin thought he was going to win the war, Nehammer said he thinks “he thinks he’s winning the war.”
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) April 16, 2022
Nehammer said earlier this week he was “not particularly optimistic after my talks with Putin.”
“I made it clear to Mr. Putin that nobody shares his position, his view,” Nehammer said at a press conference in Moscow. “He sees it as a kind of self-defense operation by the Russian Federation. He calls it military special operations. I call it the war.”
Russian forces withdrew from areas around Kyiv earlier this month after failing to capture the Ukrainian capital, and received another blow this week after the warship Moskva was hit by a Ukrainian missile and sank.
Russian troops have regrouped for what is likely to be a new offensive in the eastern Donbass region.